Once
by TMBlue
Summary: COMPLETE! One lonely night in sixth year, something happens to Ron in the Gryffindor common room that he will never let happen again...


_**A/N:** I am a horrible liar... Okay, but seriously, I wrote 1,400 words on Sharing Sleep today! Progress? :)_

_Okay, here's the fun story on this fic. My good pal Dove drew a piece of Bill/Lavender art for a fest called Kinky Kristmas. While she was working on her art, I had the opportunity of a sneak preview. And because I'm SO Ron/Hermione centric, my brain didn't fuss with the Bill/Lavender story that was taking place behind her art... but instead, I immediately began puzzling through her final frame, and why... and how... and in what circumstance... ahem. _

_Therefore, I was very inspired, and this fic was born._

_To uncloud the mysteriousness of the above sentences, here is Dove's Kinky Kristmas art, entitled "My Strange Addiction" - http : / / asylums . insanejournal . com / daily_deviant / 463620 . html (as usual, remove the pesky spaces!)_

_And now, here is Once, inspired completely by the last frame of "My Strange Addiction." I hope you enjoy it!_

* * *

><p><strong>Once<strong>

Ron's lonely walk back from rounds to the common room felt like some sort of punishment tonight. He'd been _inches_ away from her, an hour ago. He'd had a moment when maybe scattered clouds had lifted. Things that had gotten muddled down by mistakes seemed more transparent and obvious as she blinked too often and ignored him completely. And then, as the prefects meeting concluded, she'd vanished, practically up in smoke, and he'd found that his feet were too heavy to propel him for several minutes afterwards.

He'd taken a solo shift, hands in his pockets as he did approximately a half-arsed job. Perhaps less. But it wasn't as if he thought it mattered so much right now. How many times had he broken the very rules he was assigned to uphold in others? But he'd finally drummed up a smile as he considered the very real fact that following those same rules, he could give Lavender as many detentions as he wanted and avoid her company, possibly for weeks.

The sick feeling in his stomach, realising that he shouldn't exactly be happy about chucking his girlfriend out for detention, was what brought him back to his current reality, now on his walk back to Gryffindor tower. And then there was the fact that, had he lived out his fantasy, he'd also find himself in those same detention rooms with Lavender, polishing Snape's shoes or some other hopelessly mundane task, with nothing but the sound of her hacked off huffs and trite complaints to console him.

But then there was no point in considering alternatives to his very real life as he ducked through the portrait hole at nearly midnight, sure he was the last prefect to come through. As the portrait echoed shut behind him, a head of not-bushy-enough hair bounced in his direction, far too alert for midnight on a Tuesday...

"Hullo!" Lavender squealed, throwing her arms around his neck and crushing a firm kiss to his lips. When she pulled back, she giggled, pressing her lips together. "Oops! Was I too loud?" she whispered, much too loudly.

"What are you doing down here?" he asked, scanning the rest of the common room over the top of her head and finding no one else around.

"Waiting for you, silly," she said, intentionally lowering her head to look up at him through her heavy eyelashes.

"Right," Ron said, attempting to casually extricate himself from her grip, but she dragged herself along with him as he shuffled his feet in the direction of the boys' dormitory. "We should, uh, get to bed."

"Am I making you nervous?" she asked, lowering her voice seductively.

He wrapped a hand around her elbow and suddenly felt the chill of the winter seeping through the walls.

"No," he lied.

She giggled and released him, backing up slowly until she was no longer touching him. He was free to make his escape. He could have run from the room. But he felt his feet once again sink into the floor, too heavy to move in that particular direction.

"Come here," and she beckoned him towards the sofa that faced the fireplace. The warm glow tempted him, cold hands and neck requesting permission to approach. Clearing his throat, he managed his way to the far left side of the couch, positioning himself on the edge of the cushions, long legs stretched straight out towards the fire.

"What is it?" he asked casually, her presence slowly trickling into his veins as he considered their privacy. It wasn't as if he didn't know what the inside of nearly a dozen broom closets and dark castle corners looked like by now. But weeks had passed, and the thrill had turned to something bordering on regret. And instead of cursing the idea of anyone objecting, and actually _enjoying _the idea that a _particular _someone just might mind a good deal more than the rest of them, he'd grown rather bored and uncomfortable, withdrawing more often than not. There was an underlying passive nature to his relationship now, one that guided him towards Lavender at her command, but never wandering willingly into her presence.

"I had an idea," Lavender said softly, biting her lip and lifting her eyebrows too far as Ron turned towards her, breathing deeply.

"Make it quick," he said simply, leaning back into the sofa and crossing his ankles, feet now quite warm by the crackling fire.

"That shouldn't be a problem," Lavender giggled, and immediately, he dissolved from 'vaguely nervous' to 'extremely wary,' at the tone of her voice...

She scooted along the back of the settee, closer and closer, until she was pressed along his right side, her nose inches from his. She grinned up at him before closing her eyes and kissing him. He watched the way her eyelids fluttered, pink and shimmery with some thick makeup she'd applied to them. Her eyebrows were clearly highlighted in something, too, darker even than usual. He felt a pang of something distant, disappointment in how well he knew her features, with so much close contact. It was terribly unnatural to know her - to have such specific awareness of the nuances of her hairline and the way her long fingernails felt digging into the back of his neck - and yet, not to know her at all.

Her teasing right hand waved back and forth across his chest, dropping lower until he pulled away from her kiss, her fingers dancing between his jumper hem and his belt buckle.

"What-" he started, voice low and raspy as he studied her devious eyes.

"Shhh," she requested, shaking her head when he dared to look unsure. He wasn't so proficient at deduction, never claimed to be. And now, with both of her hands dropping too low, as she removed her body from contact with his to sit up on the edge of the settee and gaze down at her progress, he couldn't riddle together enough of the pieces to conclude precisely where he'd end up if he didn't stop her now...

His throat was too dry and his palms too sweaty, and his heart was doing some sort of uncomfortable jig. He recognized some distant familiarity, however, in an accelerated heartbeat, and it was too easy to distinguish the immediate difference... that the last time he'd been so nervous, he'd been thigh to thigh on that very same settee with Hermione, and she'd grinned up at him proudly as he'd recited two whole verbatim sentences from their Transfiguration textbook, months ago... back when he couldn't have correctly guessed the colour of Lavender's eyes to save his own life. The way things should have stayed...

It was too late to undo his reminiscing, and he was suddenly transported to quiet middle-of-the-nights behind his bed curtains, eyes shut as he pictured Hermione's ink stained hands running through his hair, down the length of his body. The way the little ridge at the top edge of her top lip would tremble when she was nervous. He could almost feel his fingertips against her collarbone, memorized perfection he'd only seen once or twice in full, coupled with the discovery of lightly freckle-dusted shoulders in those few rare moments at the Burrow, in the brilliant summer sun...

But he opened his eyes, and instead of bushy brown chaos, he was greeted with sleek locks of carefully parted and organized hair, cascading down a rigid back. He was enticed and turned on now by a completely different map than the one he could see, another much more precisely memorized body, and not just because he'd spent so much time staring over books and watching her walk away from him. No, he knew Hermione's heart and soul, and it coloured every inch of her, the natural glow of her skin and the smell of her shampooed hair...

With an excited little giggle, Lavender shrugged one shoulder up at Ron as she unbuckled his belt, and his brain suddenly rushed up to 'just past midnight in the common room, alone with a giggling Lavender Brown'... and he knew he had to get out. Quickly.

"This isn't a good id-" he began, hardly able to hear his own words over the pounding of his heart inside his ears.

But she lifted a hand to his mouth, clasping it around his lips and shaking her head.

"It's a _great _idea, actually," she whispered, once again in that sort of childlike way that begged to be overheard. Ron managed to wiggle his face away from her hand and glance over the back of the sofa, eying the room with suspicion, tossing several lingering investigations up towards the dormitory balconies. This was bad... so bad.

He squirmed back against the settee cushions, sitting up a bit straighter as she expertly worked his jeans button free, slipping his zip down in slow motion. And then, with a flick, she'd reached up to her own shirt collar, freeing several buttons to reveal a large strip of cleavage, darkening as it cut towards her bra... which he could now see peeking out from the top of her gaping shirt.

"Inspired?" she asked, voice far too innocent for someone with their shirt hanging open, breasts swelling seductively... sitting mere inches from a man with his jeans just as open...

"Come on," Ron hissed, "stop that."

But _he _could have stopped her, couldn't he? He could have pushed her away, stood from the sofa, knocked her off of him... He could have. But he was frozen. Nothing worked properly, not even his limbs, left hand gripping a fistful of the settee arm, knuckles bone white.

"No, thank you," Lavender giggled again, and she placed a firm left palm against his chest, pressing him back into the settee and holding him there.

His eyes burned for a moment, and he wondered why the hell he was so broken. What had he done, precisely, that had gotten him so tangled, so deeply buried in a mess with no way out? Cynically, though he shouldn't have been here in the first place, now that he _was _here, he felt sure he was stuck. He wasn't _actually _going to find his way out.

Lavender's fingers shot ice through his stomach as she brushed up his jumper and explored boxer elastic. And before he could breathe, she'd worked her way underneath, sliding lower through eyebrow raising territory. She gave him a cheeky smirk and leaned into him, biting his bottom lip and running her tongue along the edge.

He shivered as she pulled back again, pouting at him as he questioned her behaviour unfavourably with his wrinkled nose and suddenly rigid muscles. But instead of words, spoken or otherwise, she dipped her blushing face to his neck, working her hand down that last inch.

He jolted against the settee, eyes wide and arm suddenly around Lavender's back, clenching her tightly as he tried to swear. But emptiness drifted out from between his parted lips, and he smashed his eyelids down, blocking out visions of a distorted present and an alarmingly unclear future. Her hand tightened around him, and he'd never felt anything like it before. It was too foreign, too cold. Was this what it was like, always?

True to Lavender's words from before, it didn't take long. His body took over, leaving his brain far behind, trapped in the dark as nerves and blood raced towards the one thing that _was _clear. Blindingly so.

He tried to reach back, to hold onto some small bit of who he really was, of the knowledge that this was so very wrong. But he felt the last threads, those that connected his heart with someone who could very well never want to see him again, slipping tragically away.

"Shit, shit, shit..." he breathed, chest heaving as Lavender tightened her grip and began to move slowly, raking her nails along his overly sensitive skin.

A fog settled thickly over him. And for the next few moments, he knew nothing but the sensation of a hand wrapped around him. A tremor washed down him from his chest to settle beneath Lavender's suddenly burning hot fingers. And then, with another shaky breath, he was tossed into the depths of that most pleasurable feeling, one he'd never before shared with another soul.

He panted in shallow bursts as she breathed into his neck, too hot and too close. And then, it was all over. The room settled uncomfortably around him as she pulled back and giggled again... And he began to resurface.

"Oh!" she squealed, and he felt air against far too much of his exposed lower body.

Through half-closed eyelids, he watched Lavender remove her wand from her pocket and aim it in the general direction of his open jeans zipper. She muttered a cleaning spell, one he would have feared for her to try on him if he had been completely in his right mind. But he was only just on the other side of what had happened, and it took several more breaths after her spellwork for him to catch up.

She looked up at his dazed face and grinned broadly at him.

"Told you it would be quick," she giggled, pocketing her wand again and refastening her shirt buttons.

"You-you..." he began, but his voice died as a dark cloud descended overhead.

Shame, is what you could call it. Utter shame.

Reality slapped him hard across the face, and he couldn't move. She'd just... he'd just...

He wanted to crawl into a corner and hide. He wanted to never have to see Lavender ever again.

And he was sure now... it wasn't supposed to feel like _this_.

"We'd better go to bed," Lavender whispered, laughing through her words.

She tugged his hand and he stood, terrified to look down at her as she shifted her shirt back into proper order.

"You can thank me later," she grinned, up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, lingering sickeningly before bouncing away from him. Leaving him alone. He listened to her retreating footsteps, punctuated by giddy, muffled giggles. And then, she was gone, and he found the strength to drag his feet up step after step...

He reached his dormitory door and turned the handle, pushing it open to find his dormmates all sleeping soundly. The walls of the cold room seemed to press down against him as his breath hitched in his throat, mechanically undressing and redressing, ignoring the feeling of his own skin against his hands, and finally crawling into his bed. He closed the curtains tightly, dropped onto his back, and squinted against the renewed burning behind his eyes.

Biting the inside of his cheek, he trembled on top of his quilt.

He was reminded of Hermione's time turner, and all of the things he'd do to take it back, to return to that lonely walk back from his rounds, low in his own thoughts and wallowing in past mistakes. He would take that pain any day to what he felt now. There was a voice in the back of his head that reminded him that he had no one to apologize to. But his heart had repaired and reconnected the ties to its lifeline, and he owed his own secrets that very apology.

It didn't matter if she didn't know the way he consistently clung to her, a connection that no sharp words or hurtful choices could ever sever. It was there and real and alive... for him. So blinding and vital that it could crush him, crumble him in the face of physical pleasure. There was no comparison.

His vision blurred and he refused to call these tracks of salty water what they really were.

Couldn't he fix this? He'd die, if he could. He'd stop his own heart and hand it over to Hermione. But right now, she was surely asleep in her bunk, and Lavender was gloating about what _she'd _done.

And he was here with nothing but this new sickness, pooling in the pit of his stomach, painfully.

He had the fleeting thought, as he closed his eyes, that one day he'd tell Hermione what he'd let happen. He'd tell her how sorry he was and how he wished he could take it back. He imagined she wouldn't forgive him. And then he imagined that she _would_. Because it was too much to face to think that she wouldn't. It was too much to face every bloody day, that maybe she wouldn't... maybe she wouldn't forgive _anything_.

But in dreams, he could see a day with a possibility. He could see a light from knowing he'd never make the same mistakes twice.

Lavender. Her wandering hands too far south. Hermione's hidden tears when he'd made fun of her... _for nothing_. For the things that he actually treasured in her. The things that he loved.

Once was so much more than enough. He'd come much too far down this dark road.

It was time to start walking backwards.


End file.
